Upper Canada, Canada West and Ontario — different names for the same place. It was built by a wide range of characters: surveyors, soldiers, politicians, miners, entrepreneurs, scrappers and showmen.

Arthur Rankin was all of those.

The Montreal Gazette pretty much nailed Rankin with this description: “There are not many men in Canada better known for his somewhat Quixotic eccentricities than Arthur Rankin.”

In 1831, when he was 15, Rankin ran away from his family to become a cabin boy. He was away for four years.

Two years after his return, he qualified as a surveyor.

He moved to Windsor and then Toronto, after a duel. There he joined the militia and became an ensign in 1837, the year of the Upper Canada Rebellion.

He transferred to the Essex Militia in an effort to see action in the rebellion and when the rebel Patriots attacked Windsor in December of 1838, he led the counter-attack that captured the Patriot standard.

In 1843 Rankin headed to England and created a travelling “wild west” show featuring Ojibwa. It performed for Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle.

A year later he sold the act and returned to Ontario. Rankin was granted a mining location in the vicinity of Michipicoten on Lake Superior. He also worked with his brother, Charles, who was surveying land for the government around Owen Sound. Rankin, Arthur, not Charles, discovered copper on the north shore of Lake Huron. This became Bruce Mines, which he sold for more than $3 million in 1847.

By 1849, he was back in Essex, rich and raring to go — into politics.

His first attempts were not successful, but eventually he represented his home riding of Essex.

As it turned out, Rankin was not a great politician. He often slid into name-calling, including a match with John A. Macdonald, then the Attorney General of Upper Canada. He annoyed the future prime minister so much, Macdonald mused about whether a duel was required. It didn’t seem to matter that they were both in the same party (Tories).

Not surprisingly, Rankin had a reputation as a maverick.

A railway scandal led to his defeat in Essex in 1857.

He went back to mining and found more productive sites in the Superior and Huron area.

He tried politics again in 1861. But before he could sit in his newly won seat, the American Civil War broke out and Rankin couldn’t resist. He volunteered to raise a lancer regiment. He talked to president Abraham Lincoln and was given an American warrant to raise a regiment with Rankin as colonel.

Until 1856 Rankin had been the local militia colonel and was now a newly elected member of the government. That fall, Rankin was arrested for breaching the Foreign Enlistment Act. He never went to trial but he was forced to resign his American commission. The regiment was disbanded the next year, never seeing action.

Rankin’s election victory was also voided, but he was re-elected in 1863 – by two votes.

But he would not be in the legislature for Confederation, despite being an ardent supporter of a united Canada, as he lost the next election.